I have been reading things in the UK newspapers lately about the nature and relevance of feminism today, the sexualisation of children in western society and the dismay of many about how we can walk down a street with our kids and see provocative advertising everywhere. I consider myself a pretty liberal soul but when I grew up, I was never exposed to any of the advertising and newspaper "sexual confrontation" that my children have passing before their eyes every day, unless I take great care about where I position the push chair when I walk into WH Smith or when a bus rolls up with a woman in her bras and knickers plastered down the side. I think my dad may have had a playboy under his bed in 1978 but that disappeared pretty quickly when it was unearthed by me. A kid.
Adults nowadays seem to be resigned to it. Perhaps we see it as a price of free speech and of course we are glad that we have freedom to say what we like. But what is the cost of this?
What about the internet? It seems like an uncontrollable beast when it comes to porn spam. Spam filters and web filters have limited success. I have tried them. The spam still makes it through filters like google and other companies.
I have gotten used to submitting a benign string of search terms on the net in order to search for something, and having to wade through and avoid explicit porn spam at times to get a result. Having used the net for years, it has been a slow boil for me and I know what to avoid. Recently, I had to have a look at what normal searches turned up and I was surprised at one click showed.
What about my just now internet age daughter who can now google and do various searches? She can use facebook and the porn spam pops up on that too. Is it right that wading through it all is now a norm? What effect does this have on teenagers? I certainly didn't have to deal with it when I did research when I was younger, internet or no internet. When I did my first degree we were all still writing long hand essays. Am I getting conservative in my old age? I have always believed in the adage that "I may not agree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it" but if you click on some of these links you get a gobbledigook of random and insane word combinations that have solely been put together to capture your sane search terms. It is absolute nonsense but it is bloody offensive and useless nonsense, and it usually always comes with little pictures that you don't want to see. Or your kids to see and it leaves the playboys of the 70's in the dust. One click.
It clutters the web and dilutes the effectiveness of legitimate web searches. It does nothing but direct you to revolting highly sexual pictures of body parts and very young women. You do not have to be searching for porn to click on a link and see this stuff.
I got a bee in my bonnet about it and reported a load of it to google once after a particularly offensive result to a particularly benign search and had hardly any success. Google has a set of guidelines about what it will remove and it seems to me that after reporting a load of porn spam, the only stuff that was removed were pages that had defunct links. Obviously google doesn't own the net and to have things removed, you need to approach the actual web site providers. But this is a company that is making a profit across borders and seems to be able to set its own very reserved guidelines.
We can debate it ad infinitum. Whoever is responsible I don't really care- I just dont want it in my computer. Or near my kids. Or near young impressionable women. Or my son. Or near any human being on the planet to be honest.
There is a family that recently made the news because the parents did away with electronic media for their children and I envy them very much and am thinking of doing the same. Years ago there was the argument that if you didn't like the nature of programs on tv you could just turn it off. But the net is a very difficult thing to turn off. If you do go against the grain and remove it from your children's spheres, that may be a win of sorts - but they still have to walk down the street.